Subject: [DarkSlash] Magechild (Buffy/Hellblazer C/O)(NC-13: Rape Refs) Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 04:16:09 -0000 From: "sycoraxil " Summary: Set in my AU "Not Seeing Red," where Warren Meers killed Xander and Giles instead of Tara, and where John Constantine arrives in Sunnydale for his old mates' funeral, as well as to meet Buffy Summers for the first time. Setting: Just after my fic "Oblivion's Daughter." Giles has just been laid to rest. Constantine sat at the Bronze, as Doug Mercer brought him drinks. He sat alongside Constantine, his expression bleak and haunted: "What's it all about, young Dougie?" "Mate, I knew something like this would happen. I should have volunteered to be at the Magic Box when Meers struck there, then it would've been me. Fuck, it's all so unfair! Giles was hurt more than enough during his life. He deserved some happiness, not this." "He wanted to protect you from precisely that, Dougie me old mate. I think he might have known, in any case. And the Magic Box needed a powerful wiccan to protect it, an' experienced. You're powerful, yeah. Which is why you were needed out there, to see off Andrew Wells." "It's the Threefold, isn't it? Damn it, Johnno, wasn't losing Janna Kalderash to Angelus enough for the Powers? Wasn't watching his slayer die before his eyes last year? An' I will refrain from commenting about the bastard Watchers Council. Lonner's the only good one still associated with that lot..." "No argument there. So what about you, then? D'you want to go back to the Institute?" Doug shook his head: "I can't leave them now, mate. Ripper would have wanted that, and I will not turn my back on that." "He was proud of you, who you are now, what you became, despite all that shit in your earlier life." Doug's voice broke: "He was like a second dad to me, Johnno. He was the one who replaced the dad I never really had. I feel like someone's ripped a hole in my body and torn out my heart..." "I never had an abusive relationship with my old man, although I was a right tearaway, like Ripper an' those others. We met, we did heroin one night, we talked about our edgy demonic bullshit, and we both paid for what we did. Ehygon got out and killed most of his coven, apart from that worthless bastard Rayne. Oops." "Can we not bring Ethan the wanker into this conversation?" "Sorry. Forgot." "Yeah, and some of us *want* to forget that little episode back in Twin Peaks, ta very much." "Dougie, don't end up like Giles and me. I mean, shit, our Gemma's turning into a right little tearaway. I'm scared shitless she'll end up like me, only she's younger, and there's a lot of seriously bad apocalyptic harbinger stuff doin' the rounds..." Doug laid a hand on Constantine's shoulder: "Mate, don't. Okay, you're not the most whitebread mage I know, but you're basically on the level and serve the light. Okay, so it doesn't conform exactly to orthodox definitions of what that should be, but..." "But. You have suffered too, Dougie, and don't you dare push that fact down into the past and not let yourself feel some happiness, some love. Mate, you need to find someone, to settle down, to make a life..." "I don't know it's too late for that, Johnno." "Mate? Look at you. You're only twenty-one there, I'm nearly twice that." "Well-preserved though. Ah. Look, I promised the slayer I'd meet her, and here she is. Buffy? Over here." As Buffy sat alongside them, Giles could see her own drawn and tired expression, numb at what she and her friends had been through. Given the summer turn, the Hellmouth was entering one of is periodic downturn phases for the year, and the slayer needed only one pointsman in Sunnydale. Which had meant that despite his own devastation at losing someone who was as much a mentor and friend to him as the slayer, Doug had, predictably, put his own life on hold, and battled the night alongside her. "Mr.Constantine." "Buffy. Right strange name, but then this is California." "Johnno and I were just reminiscing about Ripper and the past, Buffy. He seems to think that I'm putting things on a backburner to helo you out." "Yes, well, that's true, you are. And new Doug-shaped friend, that's why I love you like a brother. Because Giles fulfilled a need for both of us. And because you're a lot like him, and we need each other to live through this." "I'd brave hell to bring him back, Buff." "I know you would, Doug. But however much this wound in our lives hurts right now, we'll heal and survive." "He would have wanted that for both of you." "And for you, Johnno. He said as much to me back in Twin Peaks a few months back." "I don't know about me, young Dougie. Tell him, though, Buffy. This young shit'ead here is talkin' about putting the rest of his life on hold and he don't deserve to shut out any chance at happiness he might get." Buffy leant forward and kissed him on the forehead: "I don't know how I would have survived what I almost did to Jonathan, what I did do to Warren Meers and Andrew Wells. I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life." "Yeah, but Buff? My friend, that Meers bastard murdered our Ripper and Xander Harris. Good, noble, compassionate Xander, who doesn't have shit hot slayer or wicca powers, but fought alongside you for the last five years." Buffy let a single tear slide down her face: "It should've been me, Doug. I was the one who was supposed to protect him, not the other way round. That's what still hurts." "Buffy, we all have our breaking point. We wouldn't be human otherwise." "You? You seem incorruptible, Doug. I don't think you'd ever consider the darkmage option." At that moment, she was startled at the haunted, wracked look that had indicated something about his life that she didn't know yet. But it was the truth, though, the Institute had said he'd never considered darkmage uses of his power and was Institute enforcer against aberrant mages. Constantine knew what it was: [Aw, Dougie. You 'aven't told her?] [Fuck, Johnno, she's the slayer. She has enough to worry about, and I refuse to add to that by telling her that Spike abducted and raped me seven years back. Gaia, does she need to be told her deceased lover was that much of an evil bastard once? No, she does not need that now. Spike is gone, and I have to live with that.] [Don't you *dare* blame yourself for what happened to Spike, Dougie. I won't have that. You are entitled to feel ambivalent after what that scum did to you. Okay, so he cleaned up later on, even helped the slayer and her sis. And what Meers and Wells did to him, they paid for. You are not to blame. It's not your fault that the Council had that info on file, not your fault that Meers decrypted it, not your fault that Meers and Wells got their hands on that tech. Not your fault that Wells was so angry at what he read that he was the one who suggested taking Spike out that way. Not your fault at all. Sure, no-one deserves that. But listen up, you've got to tell her eventually.] [Yeah, but not now. Not when she's fragile enough, and having to deal with this] [So you get to be the strong one, and sacrifice your own need to deal with the past? Unfair to you.] [The slayer comes first, Johnno. She did to Giles, she does to me. I'm her pointsman and her best male mate now that those two blokes aren't there anymore. I have a responsibility to her not to add to her burden.] [Mate? You keep up this pressure on yerself this way, and you'll crack.] [That's my decision, Johnno.] [Levinson's going back to England with me. I phoned Lessa Nelson and she's agreed to accept him for Watcher training.] [He's a good lad. Okay, so he's had a shady past, but at least one of the other people at this table also has. He needs a real right bastard to show him the error of his ways.] [I love you too, Dougie.] [Sorry mate, you're not my type. Anyway, time to pack it in for the evening.] "Buffy? I have to start unpacking tomorrow morning." "Night. And Doug? Thanks for everything. Dawnie's talking to me at last. And Jonathan... isn't scared of me any more." "Buffy, it'll take some far more spectacular falls from grace than those two to really compromise who and what you are. Ripper loved you. He loved you both. Now, I've got to get back to the motel and tend to our little mate." "And Buffy? Jonnie's already forgiven you. And I think that when you told him that you respected his guts for offering his own life as recompense for Meers' and Wells' murders of Xander, Giles, a-and Spike, you helped him turn a corner. That took courage yourself." "Before you go, Doug, can we have a toast?" "Yeah." "To absent friends." In silence, the three drained their glasses.